10/25/08
I had someone drop parts off to Duttweiler, made some follow up calls over the next few weeks, and spoke with Kenny last Monday. He thought he would have the motor on the dyno in the next two days, but obviously that has not happened. I assured him that I had some other front accessory parts if he needed them and would bring whatever else I had here.
I think they are finding some difficulties, such as having to assemble the polished alternator, mount the power steering, figure out the alternator mountings, etc.
It is Saturday night and I heard nothing from Kenny all week.
I will call Monday and follow up and see if there are any hurdles. Kenny said of course he would call me when it was ready to dyno, as he knew that was where the fun is for the customer.

I'm going to Moorpark tomorrow for the Roam'n Relics Car Show in the Hemi, but will not venture over the hill to Kenny's in any event.

I still have the $3K stashed in cash for Jay to do the install, and $500 in reserve for Duttweiler.
Given that I get the Malamut TI job I'm bidding now, I will have a little cash to move on the Condor as needed. For now, I hope the 3 grand set aside from the FC sale is enough to finish it up with Jay.

10/29/08
Still waiting on a decision with Malamut. Meanwhile, Duttweiler had two delays: finish a prior engine, and repair the driveshaft on his dyno. No big for me, Perhaps next week. I am down to $500 being held in cash for Duttweiler. Hope this works, or I'll have to steal some Papa Jay money.
The weight and power and balance of the car will likely require some springing adjustments. I dearly hope that the changes we made result in a better handling car, and that the thing isn't just a squatting pig when I hit the throttle. Certainly everything done by Jay this year should improve the package. And, I also hope a proper lack of traction will save the driveline parts. Dutweiler should know just what is available for IRS like mine.

11/25/08
The motor has sounded great through about 15 pulls, no blow-by, no hiccups, nothing. It is pictured here without the intercooler in place between the blower and the hat.

The motor was up to 574 HP on 11# of boost, with a massively leaking connection to the intercooler, and the hat not seating well on the throttle body.
Kenny remade the intercooler inlet after the intercooler blew off on a pull. The engine has been set quite rich, only 22 degrees of timing, and the plugs showing a rich condition.
Kenny made some other corrections, such as enlargening the bolt for the hat hold-down, adding a second blower belt tensioner, changing the Idle Air Control housing and motor, and making some electrical connection alterations. The IAC and electrical stuff was SUPPOSED to have been done by Josh Deeds, and was NOT.
We also went to 60# injectors, and found that the 44# units had some slime built up in a couple. Regardless, the motor has run rich all the way, but it was clear the 44# injectors would not supply enough fuel over 5500 RPM to make power, hence the change. The change to bigger injectors was a good thing.
However, Kenny did another pull with up to 18# of boost at 6200, advanced the timing 5 degrees, and it only picked up 20 HP, not the 80-100 we anticipated.
The nightmare continues.

11/26/08
I must say that as I am not selling this car anytime in the near future, if EVER, this will make for entertainment, and not as some sales pitch.
Without pulling it apart, Kenny thought the motor had cracked a piston, so was essentially running on 7 cylinders the last pull. If true, this means ALL the pistons must come out and the rings must all be checked and corrected, the pistons Zyglo-checked for cracks, etc. if this was due to a too-tight ring gap.
The engine shows WAY rich, no detonation, so no APPARENT issues there. This means at least another thousand dollars, and a three-week delay.
Upon opening it up it turns out that #5 #6 both went lean and burned the edges of those two pistons. Thinking about it, this event must have come from the slightly sludged up smaller injectors and occurred early in the dyno series, hence the motor was not responding and making the power we expected. Kenny had added an additional fuel screen when we dynoed the bigger injectors, so fuel contamination there was not an issue. This apparently all emanated from sludge from back in January when Grubbs dynoed the motor. This is odd, as the entire engine came apart when Consolo rebalanced it, but apparently no one ever cleaned out the fuel system.
Kenny is going to flow test each injector now to make sure they are all right.

The Condor is over at Jay's as of Monday morning 11/24/08. It did not appear he was anywhere near ready to push it into the shop. It is now raining. Hopefully, he will have gotten it in, or at least covered it.
I gave him a thousand bucks last Thursday 11/20/08 on a flat rate deal to finish the car for three grand plus parts.
This was based on his estimate of about a week and a half to do the install and complete the car, PLUS materials.
He, of course, accepted then immediately started whining about how he was going to get hurt on the deal.
So the saga continues, the "prize" remains elusive, and there is yet more drama to endure before I get to spin the tires on this EXTREMELY long-awaited hot rod.

11/30/08
Jay accompanied me to Bob's on Friday night, and said he had put the Bird in IMMEDIATELY and up on his rack. He did not do anything on it this week. I am SO anxious to get this car done.
Jay is to start on it tomorrow. I will make numerous trips over there to expedite the work.

12/2/08
It is nearly midnight and I did not get there Monday or Tuesday. I WILL go tomorrow. Jorge Arteaga had a problem with his LS-1 motor, and I went with him to Nils Castillo's garage in the WAY out there boonies near Lake Sherwood. Fascinating area. Nils found the flywheel bolts were too long. Simple deal. But I sure realized once again looking at these motors that I REALLY should have just put a blown LS-1 using a Magnuson unit in the Bird. Ah, hindsight.

12/5/08
The nightmare continues, in spades.
I went to Jay's and he had done ZERO on the car, despite the fact it has been there a week and a half. He said he would start on it on 11/24/08, the day I delivered it. He then said he would start on it 12/1/08. He retorted he had to pay attention to what was bringing in the money, claiming without the motor he was wasting time on the car. Gee, I gave him a THOUSAND up front before I delivered the car. There is certainly a week's work on the car without the motor there to get it ready.

I just took a big breath and walked away.

But for the REAL fun, I called Kenny Duttweiler. He completely disassembled the motor.
They just opened the regulator and found the diaphragm half gone, explaining what all the red crap in the injectors was and the lean out on the front two cylinders. This was a Deeds part. There is obviously no getting Deeds to pay for anything other than maybe replacing the regulator.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:

So the approximately 4.160 stroke (a VERY odd length) was JUST touching one of the cam lobes. Not a terrible thing, not unusual, and Mike at QMP had obviously tried to relieve the rod a bit to clear the cam, as Dicum was present on the parts.
But the compression came out at 8.85, NOT the 8.25 I had specified. Further, that higher compression reduces the amount of timing we can use on pump gas, and consequently reduces total power. Every tenth of a point means another degree of timing. A half a point of compression means a loss of about 50 HP without resorting to methanol or race gas. So a MUCH lower compression, as I had requested, gives a LOT more room on the timing curve using pump gas. The length of the rod, the piston pin height, the dished piston, and the stroke all make it nearly impossible to go to a much lower compression piston, without raising the pin further into the rings.
So reducing the stroke with a new forged (this crank is cast) unit, will cost me 15 cubic inches, but will make the architecture MUCH sounder. So the short story here is new crank, all new pistons and rings and pins, a little artwork in the heads, about 8:1 final compression, and a much stronger combination, making about 650 HP.
This will run another $3000. Kenny is not charging me to run the motor again. This will take about three weeks. Today is 12/5/08. I am NOT counting on this happening before Christmas.
So the motor cost me $5300 originally from mark Gaspard, less what I sold the other motor for, about $3000. So a difference of $2300. But it took almost 5 months and nearly $5000 to get the motor in, so we're at $7300. Then the motor was junk, and that was another $4000 at QMP with new heads, cam, pistons, etc., including Gaspard picking up part of the tab, to make it a supposedly good engine. Now the Grubbs dyno was almost $1,000, so we're at $12,300. The Big Stuff 3 jerking around with Deeds plus injectors adds another $3000, and the Kenny dyno work at $1500 to date puts us at $17,000 The original Edelbrock stuff was $2500, so we're now just under $20,000. The Vortech stuff probably really was about $2000, so the motor is a cool $22,000. Add perhaps $2,000 of Roy Ransom time taking the motor in and out working on the blower brackets, etc., and we're at $24,000.
Factor in another $3,000 for new crank, pistons, etc. and we're at a staggering $27,000 for this motor.

The idea of going with an LS-1 motor, in long discussion today with Kenny, appears to have been the RIGHT decision. At this point, however, making that change would require more money and time, and I have neither. So we're just going to make this combination work, and if it just turns out to be bad in the car, I'll pull it and sell the engine and trans, go with an LS-series motor and trans, perhaps take the deep 4.88 gears out of it, and see how that works.
Kenny feels the motor could easily bring $7500, and if I stole one my KK motors, I could be done for about $6000 net difference.
Right now it's spend $3,000 and get this phase done.


2/2/09
Duttweiler waited a long time to receive pistons. I'm guessing the motor will be done in about a week. The parts are out getting balanced, etc.
I got the Condor back here up on the rear rack, and will take it down tomorrow to wash it and cover it. There are some misc parts for it and the KK still at Jay's and JJ and I will retrieve those in JJ's truck tomorrow. I have $6600 cash unexpectedly from the final disbursement from mom's estate, enough to give Jay $2K to finish off the Condor.

2/17/09
The motor is due to be done at the end of THIS week, as Duttweiler had some other projects that had to be completed.
The cash has gone, so no money is available for the install right now. I may just bring the motor back here and hold off until the fiscal situation improves. If Jay is willing to work on it without money right now, then we'll do that. But I'm not planning on it.